Jack McEvoy

Created by Michael Connelly

When we first meet JACK McEVOY in The Poet (1996), he’s a tabloid reporter for Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, and murder is his beat. But when his brother, a cop, commits suicide, he really throws himself into his work.

He decides to do a feature on police suicide and stumbles across the path of a serial killer known as “The Poet” who seems to target police officers. It was an auspicious debut, and since then, Jack’s wandered in and out of the Connellyverse, mostly on the fringes, mentioned in passing in the cases of former FBI profiler Terry McCaleb, criminal attorney Mickey Haller, FBI Agent Rachel Walling, Las Vegas thief Cassie Black, and of course Connelly’s most famous creation, LAPD homicide dick (and sometime private eye) Harry Bosch. 

But in 2009, Jack makes a real return, in The Scarecrow. He’s long since parlayed the Poet story into the journalistic big time with a gig as a crime reporter at The Los Angeles Times, but the big time is coming to an end — he’s been forced to take a buy-out. With only a few days left on the job, he decides to go out with a bang with a final story he’s convinced will nab him a Pulitzer. Eyes on the prize, he pulls out all the stops with a story on a 16-year-old crack dealer who’s confessed to raping and strangling one of his clients. Jackplans to write an exposé that’ll rip the roof off the city, explaining how societal dysfunction and neglect have created a 16-year-old killer. But as Jack worms his way deeper and deeper into the story he discovers that the confession is bullshit, and that the real killer is someone far more dangerous than a teenage drug slinger.

One of the most respected and popular mystery writers around, Connelly’s books been translated in 35 languages and have won the Edgar , the Anthony, the Macavity, the Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, the Shamus, the Dilys, the Nero, the Barry, the Maltese Falcon (Japan), the .38 Caliber (France), the Grand Prix (France), and the Premio Bancarella (Italy). In 2003-04, he served as the President of the Mystery Writers of America, and he has written for TV and film, including adapting Harry Bosch for television. Connelly currently lives with his family in Florida.

UNDER OATH

• “If any novelist is worthy to walk once more through the front door of Raymond Chandler’s iconic Sternwood mansion, it’s Michael Connelly.”
  — Washington Post
• “Michael Connelly is the master of the universe in which he lives, and that is the sphere of crime thrillers. This man is so good at what he does.”
  — Huffington Post

NOVELS

• The Poet (1996) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• The Scarecrow (2009) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Buy this book
• Fair Warning (2020) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!

RELATED LINKS

• michaelconnelly.com
  The author’s official web site.
• Stop the Presses!
  Newsroom Eyes.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.